


The Better Part of Worry

by katiemariie



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Ableism, Canon Disabled Character, Dialogue Heavy, Espionage, Interspecies Relationship(s), M/M, Medical Abuse, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8941927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiemariie/pseuds/katiemariie
Summary: At Garak's urging, Julian undertakes a secret mission to help his fellow Augments. Neither of them anticipate the effect this will have on their relationship.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for mindblownie as part of Star Trek Secret Santa.

“Is something the matter, doctor?”

“Hmmm?” Julian continues picking at his food.

“You haven’t eaten a bite of your lunch,” Garak elaborates. “Usually you eat so fast I entertain sincere concerns about you choking to death.”

Julian doesn’t take his eyes off his plate, the contents of which now resemble some sort of pre-post-post-modern post-impressionist painting. “I have a lot on my mind, I suppose.”

In a surprisingly intimate gesture, Garak tucks two fingers under Julian’s chin. He raises Julian’s chin high enough to see his face, but not high enough to force eye contact—a gesture of even greater intimacy that Julian appreciates immensely.

Julian sighs, grasping the hand resting perilously close to his neck. Not that he fears such things anymore. He hasn't for many years. “It’s nothing to worry about,” he says with a squeeze.

Garak inclines his head. “I rarely worry.”

“True. If by ‘rarely,’ you mean ‘always.’”

“I believe you’re mistaking caution for worry.”

“There’s a difference?”

Garak removes his hand from Julian’s to gesture about. Just as Julian knew he would. This game has gotten easier to call over the years. “Caution is a reasonable response to potential danger while worry is merely a distraction.”

“And I suppose you find it reasonable to fret over me missing one meal out the thousands I’ll eat in a lifetime?” Julian asks.

“When it’s this meal, yes.” Garak leans across the table. “For the past nine Earth years, for as long as I’ve known you, you’ve eaten this same meal once every seven days. Rain or shine, war or peace time, no matter where we are, you order this dish. And, more importantly, you eat it.”

“Of course.” Julian scoffs. “It’s Taco Tuesday.”

“You say that as if I know what either of those words mean.”

Julian rolls his eyes but nevertheless indulges Garak’s feigned ignorance of human timekeeping. “Tuesday is the second day of an Earth week, and these are…” He gestures to his plate, trying to find some semblance of a taco in the melange of refried beans, rice, and lettuce. “Er, were tacos.”

“So, if I understand you correctly, this whole time you’ve been celebrating some kind of weekly food-based holiday.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Garak tuts. “I had no idea tacos were so important to your people.”

“They aren’t. Not to _my_ people specifically. In fact, I’m told I don’t even pronounce the word correctly.”

“Yet you observe Taco Tuesday with the fervor of a vedek.”

“It’s simply a habit I picked up from the Academy mess hall.”

“A habit?” Garak wipes at the corners of his mouth. “For all your adaptability, you are not a man to stray from habit. And yet…” He waves his napkin in the general direction of Julian’s plate.

Julian sighs, lowering his fork to the table. “I received some bad news this week.” 

“Regarding?” Garak asks, dispelling what small hope Julian had of ending the discussion there.

“A very silly and sentimental project I’ve been undertaking.”

“Which one?”

Julian scrubs his hand over his face. “In addition to my responsibilities at the University, I’ve taken on an extracurricular project, if you will. Something I couldn’t do whilst in Starfleet.”

“I was under the impression that all of your current projects couldn’t be performed under Starfleet,” Garak says. “That _was_ the deal you struck with the University.”

Ah, yes. The deal. Julian would draw in large Federation research grants (largely in the form of equipment and library access) to the cash-strapped Cardassian State University. And the University’s looser, Cardassian ethical standards (and institutional review board) would allow Julian to undertake research Starfleet would never sign off on. A win-win even if Julian had to cover the expense of relocating to Cardassia Prime.

“This is different,” Julian says. “I’m not performing medical research. I’m looking for someone. Or I was.”

“You found them?” Garak asks.

Julian nods. “Too late, I’m afraid. They died in a laboratory accident only two weeks ago.”

“Pity.” Garak’s eyes twinkle.

“It was an accident,” Julian says firmly. “I had nothing to do with it.” A beat. “Did you?”

“Of course not.” Garak straightens his spine, a reptile posturing. “As a state official, the mere implication insults me. And besides I don’t even know who we’re discussing. An old friend? A new enemy? Some pesky relative?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Julian sips his wine—one component of the meal he hasn’t neglected. “From a genetic perspective, she was just as much my progenitor as my parents are.”

Garak cocks his head to the side, recognition dawning on his face. “The authorities never did apprehend the geneticist who designed your modifications. If I recall correctly, the outfit went through a good deal of trouble to conceal the identity of the project’s architect.”

Julian leans across the table. “She was the key to everything. Without her designing each patient’s modified genome, the entire scheme would have gone under.”

Garak scoots closer in his chair. “Of course. Doctors and nurses can be replaced, but a true visionary—an artist and an artisan, in my view—is much rarer.”

“She was never onsite, never spoke with the customers,” Julian says. “Her communication with the clinicians went through intermediaries operating on secure channels. She was never named at trial or as part of a plea bargain because no one knew who she was.”

“Until now.”

“When it’s far too late to do anything with that knowledge,” Julian finishes.

Garak’s brow ridges furrow. “What precisely were you planning to do?”

“Something I’m sure you’ll find hopelessly sentimental.”

Garak draws back slightly. “Not a mother-child reunion, I hope.”

“Gods, no.” Julian’s hands grasp at his napkin, rolling the fabric between his thumbs and forefingers. “I was hoping if I monitored her activity closely enough through means that, shall we say, would be unbecoming of a Starfleet officer… I was hoping she would lead me to Jules.”

Garak leans closer once more. “I assume you don’t mean some kind of human self-help quest to find your inner child?”

Julian shakes his head. “I’m afraid I’m speaking literally. To avoid prosecution, my parents were instructed to destroy any evidence that Jules existed. Before I came home, they scrubbed down the entire house, vaporizing my hairbrush, my blankets, anything that could have a trace of my old genetic signature. Kukalaka survived by the skin of his teeth—and with a very thorough genetic decontamination procedure for which the doctors charged handsomely.”

“Ah,” Garak interjects. “So that’s why Kukalaka has that lingering antiseptic odor.”

Julian pauses. “You can smell that?”

“Well, of course. Why couldn’t I?”

“No one else ever has. I was beginning to suspect the odor was some kind psychological response on my part.”

“Oh, no. The astringents used in genetic decom treatments never truly wash out. As a tailor, one learns to recognize the scent.”

“As a tailor,” Julian deadpans.

Garak sets down his glass. “You were saying?”

Julian puts himself back on track. “The doctors and their clients were painstakingly thorough in destroying any genetic evidence tying me to Jules. The only DNA sample that remains unaccounted for was the one provided to Dr.—”

“Do not say her name,” Garak warns.

“To the geneticist,” Julian corrects himself. “She used Jules’ genome as the scaffolding to build my own. To build me.”

“And you believe she retained that sample after all these years? Even though it would implicate her in—”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“How can you be so certain?” Garak asks.

“Because I would,” Julian shrugs. “If I had proof that cemented my position as a leader in my field—and not only that, but proof that redeemed my field, showed that my work and the work of my peers isn’t the creation of genocidal monsters—then you’re damned right I would hold onto it. No matter the consequences.”

“And you assume she felt the same way?”

“She’s the only reason I feel this way at all. The more I learn about her the more I realize that she made me in her image.”

“God complex included.”

“Very much so,” Julian says over his wine glass. After a generous swallow, he continues. “All of that is moot now anyway. I can’t track and analyze her movements now that she is permanently inert.”

“Don’t sound so defeated.” Garak pats Julian’s knee under the table. “As you so often insist, one must look on the bright side. Your target is no longer moving. That should make her all the easier to ensnare. Having shuffled loose the mortal coil, the geneticist won’t be moving her cache of genetic contraband. A little archival research into her past movements should map out the trail right to it.”

“That’s the problem,” Julian gasps. Garak carefully sets their wine glasses outside the path of Julian’s gesticulating hands. “She didn’t leave a trail.”

“Everyone leaves a trail,” Garak insists. “Even the best of us.”

They’ve discussed this before: how Julian will find Garak should he ever need to disappear, the tells Garak will leave, the methods Julian will need to uncover them. It seemed oddly sweet at the time.

“If she left a trail,” Julian concedes, “it’s buried under a mountain of data.”

“Then do some digging.”

“I’ve tried. I’ve spent this whole week trawling through what few traces she left behind. Whatever breadcrumbs I’ve uncovered are connected so tenuously by seemingly random behavior that makes no empirical sense—”

“Now I understand,” Garak interrupts. “You’re upset because you’ve discovered something you’re not effortlessly gifted at.”

“Oh, believe me, I was well aware of that before,” Julian snaps. “Unlike some mutants, great intuitive leaps regarding human behavior are very much not my forte.”

The lines of Garak’s face soften. “It must be difficult, being surpassed by your peers. Especially since you were designed toward perfection. Of course…” Garak straightens his napkin on his lap. “I wouldn’t know a thing about that.”

Julian drops his gaze to Garak’s chin, a small smile forming in the corners of his mouth. “Oh, no, of course not.”

Garak reaches across the table to caress Julian’s face, thumb tracing the outlines of Cardassian ridges on the flat plane of his forehead. Julian leans into the touch, and Garak murmurs something in Kardasi.

Julian doesn’t entirely understand what he is saying (languages are another of his relatively weak spots). The important thing is that the state agents monitoring their home (and Garak assures them that there are at least two assigned to them) know how dear Julian is to Garak. Even Julian’s unskilled ears pick up a string of endearments: “my sweet,” “my love,” “my heating lamp.” 

“It’s frustrating,” Julian murmurs. “I was so close and now…”

Garak’s thumb traces a line down Julian’s nose and over his lips. “Have you considered outsourcing?”

“Outsourcing?” Julian’s eyes widen with realization. “No, I couldn’t bring them into this.”

“Why not?” Garak lets his hand drop to the table. “Between the three of them, they are more than capable of gaining access to one woman’s digital remains, making the proper connect—”

“I’ve gotten them into enough trouble as it is. If they were caught—”

“The Federation has already imprisoned them for life in that quaint little facility. Barring the return of the death penalty, I fail to see how their situation could get any worse.”

“I take it you’re not familiar with electric shock as a behavior modification technique?” Julian asks.

“You couldn’t be more wrong, my dear. However, I was under the impression that the Federation didn’t subject its criminals to such ‘inhumane’ treatment.”

“It doesn’t.” Julian raises his glass, considering the swirling dark liquid in the dull light of their kitchen. “The Federation reserves that therapy for only its most troublesome patients.”

“Jack?”

“Patrick,” Julian corrects. He takes a long, slow draw of wine. “That particular facility hasn’t used electric shocks in behavioral therapy since Patrick was a child, but, as they say, what’s old is new again. There’s been several fascinating papers published on the topic recently.” Julian makes no attempt to neutralize the acid in his tone.

“All the more reason for you to enlist their help,” Garak says.

“Have you listened to a word I’ve said? If they’re caught, they risk—”

“My dear,” Garak interrupts, “they’ve already been caught. Your concern should lie with those who’ve evaded capture. Tell me, what do you think will happen if the geneticist’s records fall into someone else’s hands?”

Julian picks up his fork, drawing pinwheels of guacamole. “At best, dozens, if not hundreds, of undocumented mutants will be turned over to Federation authorities, stripped of their social standing, many likely thrown into institutions, their parents incarcerated. At worst—” Julian spears a relatively intact piece of lettuce. “—they will be blackmailed relentlessly, forced to give away money, illicit goods, state secrets, endangering galactic security. And then when the well runs dry, they’ll be turned over to the Federation all the same.”

“You need to find those records,” Garak says. “No matter what the cost.”

“That would seem to be the case.”

-

“My word.” Garak withdraws his arm from the recesses of Julian’s pack and holds up an item Julian was particularly proud of procuring. “What is this?”

Julian plucks it from his hands. “Night vision goggles that double as a head lamp.” Securing the device on his head, Julian switches between the two modes, the lamp turning on and off. “See?”

Garak shields his eyes. “Barely. What could you possibly need that for? The geneticist’s records aren’t embedded in a cave somewhere, are they?”

“If they are, I’m not telling.” Julian strips off the combo night vision goggles/head lamp, and jams it back into his full-to-bursting rucksack.

“Ah, yes. Your persistent delusion that I’m going to drop everything and rescue you at the first missed communique.” Garak drags out another item, doing his bit to undo Julian’s carefully packed mess.

“I never said rescue. I just don’t see you resisting the temptation to join me on one last hurrah in the world of espionage.”

“My dear, this is, at most, your third ‘hurrah’ in the world of espionage.” Garak pops the lid off the container, recoiling from the odor emitted. “Is this facepaint?”

“It’s marmite. Food,” Julian clarifies.

“If you say so.” Garak passes the container to Julian, keeping his distance from the yeasty fumes.

Julian picks up where they left off. “I wasn’t talking about me. Aren’t you even a little anxious to get back into the field?”

“My dear, a number of things cause me anxiety. An urge to get back into the field is not one of them. At the risk of appearing introspective, I daresay all this anxiety started in the field.”

Julian reaches across the couch to cup the back of Garak’s head, his fingertips playing along a scar so faint only those looking for it can find. As a rule, Julian doesn’t leave scars when removing something from a patient. (Martok’s infected left eye excepted. He had to use a sharpened spoon to get that out, and Martok refused corrective surgery afterwards.) The same cannot be said for the late Obsidian Order when implanting items in their operatives.

“You’re going to worry about me,” Julian says. “Once I leave.”

“I don’t see how that can be avoided,” Garak replies.

Leaning over his rucksack, Julian presses a kiss to Garak’s temple. “I wish I didn’t have to go.”

Garak turns his head, nuzzling his nose against Julian’s. “You and I both know that’s not true,” he murmurs.

Julian rests his head against the raised ellipse over Garak’s brow. “Then I wish I didn’t want to go.”

“That’s better.”

“I wish I didn’t have to do this alone.”

Garak leans down, pressing a ghost of a kiss to Julian’s lips. “Don’t tell me where you’re going.”

-

Garak flicks the switch, trying to maintain composure as the pot lights illuminate and cast shadows on features that have been absent from this room for far too long.

“You’re late,” Garak says, stepping out from the darkness of the hallway. “I was expecting you five months ago.”

Julian remains on the couch, staring down at his hands. “Things became rather more complicated than I anticipated.”

From across the room, Garak can see the bags drooping beneath Julian’s eyes and the dirt lining his fingernails. His general unkemptness dispels Garak’s first fear—that Julian has been living out approximations of his holodeck spy fantasies in real life, making contacts with pert little Russian spies, and trying to kiss his way out of near death scenarios. No, looking far from debonair, Julian’s appearance reinforces Garak’s second and far more probable fear: he was caught, he was hurt, and he was out of Garak’s reach.

But now he’s back.

“What went wrong?” Garak eases into the living room, carefully approaching a now unfamiliar creature.

“Nothing. Nothing went wrong.” He looks up—finally—and Garak can see those eyes. Eyes Garak could recognize anywhere. Eyes that have always served as Julian’s tell. Eyes that haven’t knocked Garak off his feet like this since their stint in a Dominion prison camp.

The same eyes, always the same eyes, but wiser.

Overcome by a vague feeling he’s heard books refer to as “hope,” Garak responds with a cryptic, “Oh?”

“The records were exactly where Jack and Lauren said they would be. The device Patrick designed broke through the security system within an hour. And, as you predicted, the cache contained far more samples than just my own.” Julian tightens his jaw. “She labelled them with our names. ‘Upgraded Julian Bashir.’ ‘Obsolete Julian Bashir.’ That’s all Jules was to her. Some redundancy, a throwback that needed to be corrected. I don’t understand how she could refer to me—to us—by name and then call us ‘obsolete’ like we were…”

Julian shakes his head before continuing on. “When performing a study, you never label the samples with the subjects’ names. For better or for worse, replacing a subject’s name with a number allows a scientist to remain objective. But for her… We weren’t just tissue samples to her. Every step of the way, she was reminded that we were people. We had names. But she still got rid of us. I couldn’t…” Julian begins to rock in his seat. “I couldn’t do that again. I couldn’t destroy the samples as I planned. I couldn’t remove whatever obsolescent trace of who we were die.”

Garak approaches the couch slowly, as if any sudden movement would send Julian running. “But you couldn’t allow the records to fall into Federation hands either.”

Julian wets his lips. “I thought about bringing them here or hiding them somewhere. But even as a temporary measure that would put us both at too great a risk. I couldn’t destroy the records, I couldn’t keep them, so I gave them back.”

“Back?” Garak’s eyes dart around the room, ever cognizant of the listening devices implanted by some bureaucratic agency. “You mean, you returned the samples to their rightful owners?”

“Or their closest living relative,” Julian says. 

“My.” Having edged close enough, Garak props himself on the arm of the couch. “That must have taken some doing.”

“Locating everyone was easy enough thanks in part to the doctor’s labeling system. The real work was covering my tracks, making sure that my visits and communications weren’t documented. So many of them were living undetected, passing as best they could as unmodified, some better than others. But even for those virtually indistinguishable from an unmodified human, a record of me—the most famous living Augment in Federation history—paying them a visit would draw suspicion. Especially since I was making similar visits across the quadrant.”

“You did well.” Garak reaches out, but shies away, setting his hand on the couch a few inches from Julian’s shoulder. “You completely evaded my scans.”

“Really?” Julian turns to face him and there’s a glint of that boyish enthusiasm poking out from under months of separation and years of war. “I outfoxed the infamous Elim Garak?”

“Tampen down your excitement, dear. I only ran the most superficial scans. Anything more thorough would have risked alerting others to your whereabouts.”

Julian’s gaze drifts downward. “Is that why you didn’t go looking for me?”

Braver now, Garak slides onto the couch, wedging himself between Julian’s arm and the couches. “Of course. I couldn’t compromise your mission.”

“And if I hadn’t come back?” Julian asks. “How long would you have waited to find me? Six months? A year?”

“I don’t know.” At Julian’s sigh, Garak goes on, explaining himself. “This isn’t an exact science. They don’t give cadets a one-size-fits-all timeline for extraction and rescue at spy school. I can’t offer you a precise date, but know that I would have come for you eventually. As soon as the risks of you remaining in the field outweighed the risks posed by my investigation, I would have found you.”

“So… you still want—”

“Yes, of course. I didn’t live on that station for nearly a decade to come back empty-handed.”

Julian swallows. “Good.” He runs his hand up and down Garak’s thigh. There’s nothing sexual to it; Garak gets the distinct impression that his very presence is being tested and confirmed. “I thought perhaps since you didn’t come after me that I had done something to anger you.”

“Like disappear for five months?” Garak asks wryly.

Julian’s hand stills, finding a resting place on Garak’s knee. “You have every right to be angry.”

“Yet I’m not. Now if you had come back dead or with a Russian femme fatale on your arm, then I would be angry.”

With a groan, Julian lulls his head back onto the couch cushion. “Let’s not even talk about Russia. I’ve had enough of the whole bloody country.”

“You went to Russia?”

“Unfortunately.”

“I take it the Russian Federation didn’t live up to Mr. Fleming’s debauched description?”

“Not at all.” Julian stares up at the ceiling with deadened eyes. “There’s so much snow. It snows in England, but not like this. Never like this. There were just vast fields of snow.” He rolls his head to the side to face Garak. “And, of course, several of my contacts lived near the mountains—we are a very reclusive people—so I had to buy all this winter sports equipment and you know how I hate skiing.” He sighs. “Nothing was like the books. Or the movies.”

“You knew that going in,” Garak says. “You weren’t completely naive to the world of espionage. You’d been on missions before.”

“Yes, with Starfleet.” Julian slumps down in the cushions, letting his head rest on Garak’s shoulder. “This was different. I was completely alone out there. No crew, no orders from Starfleet Command, not even a uniform between me and the world. For five months, my sole companion was my sincere belief in my mission. Which would come off as very romantic and noble if in a book or a holoprogram, but in real life? I found it maddeningly annoying. If I didn’t believe in what I was doing, I could have returned home to you months ago. Instead, I ended up wandering the quadrant with a giant pack filled with rubbish.”

Garak drops his cheek onto Julian’s hair which is in dire need of a wash and a trim. “Would you do it again?”

“This mission? Yes, absolutely. If given the opportunity to do this all over again, I would make the exact same choices. But would I volunteer for another mission like this? One that would take me away from you, our home? Not in a lifetime.”

“Not even if you believed in the mission?” Garak asks.

“Look, I’m not naive enough to think that I’ve saved my people once and for all. We’re not out of the proverbial woods yet. There will be other opportunities for a dashing, young mutant to play spy and save the day. But that’s not me. There are plenty of other ways I can help my people and there are plenty of other mutants who would do a far better job at lurking in the shadows than I have.”

“I always thought that that Lauren would make an excellent operative,” Garak muses.

“See?” The sensitive scales of Garak’s shoulder register the upturn of Julian’s lips. “My place is out in the open. The one tactical advantage I have—besides my stunning intellect and roguish goodlooks—is that I can operate in the public eye. I’m the only documented Augment who isn’t locked up or living in exile. Hell, they even let me have a job.”

“The Federation’s generosity knows no bounds,” Garak deadpans.

“I can walk in daylight. Why waste that gift by scuttling about in the dead of night?” Julian asks.

“Never underestimate the power of propaganda. I wager I’ve done more to vanquish the enemies of Cardassia as Secretary of Strategic Communications than as an agent with the Order.”

“Ah, yes.” Julian puts on an officious Kardasi accent. “‘Be a hero of Cardassian. Conserve our natural resources. Water your gardens in the evening.’”

“The campaign was far more nuanced than you give me credit for. And it worked by the way.”

Julian pulls away, sitting up to look Garak in the face. “You’re joking!”

Garak preens. “Since you left, residential water waste has dropped by fourteen percent. Given that the planet still has little industry to speak of, that made a considerable dent in the drought.”

“Garak, that’s amazing!” Julian squeezes his knee. “You got Cardassians to care about their environment. That hasn’t been a cultural value for at least five millennia. I can’t believe I missed that.”

The reminder of Julian’s absence hanging heavy in the air, Garak reaches for him, cups his cheek. “Stay with me.”

Julian shifts on the couch, almost crawling into Garak’s lap as he wraps his hand around the back of Garak’s neck. “Yes, yes.” A kiss right between Garak’s eyes. “Of course.”

Garak pulls Julian on top of him. “Love me.”

Warm mammalian hands course through Garak’s hair. “Any way you want.” That hot mouth, those smooth but strong teeth encircle a scale.

Fighting for control, Garak buries his face in Julian’s neck and murmurs, “Become my family.”

Julian drops a trail of soft kisses up his neck. “Your family has never done you justice. And neither has mine.” The kisses continue across his cheek until their lips are a mere breath apart. “Let’s make a new one together.”

Garak pulls back, his hand still stroking Julian’s cheek. “You really want that?”

Julian presses their foreheads together, his preferred gesture of intimacy. All the closeness of gazing into each other’s eyes with none of the eye contact. “I’ve always wanted that.”

“But with me?”

“After I snowshoed my way out of Russia, I realized that whatever I’ve wanted in life will be with you now. I’m done living out holodeck fantasies alone.” He shifts uncomfortably in Garak’s lap. “I mean, if that’s what you want.”

With a tight embrace, Garak settles Julian’s restless body. “Only if it’s with you. I have a feeling that with anyone else the whole venture would not turn out well.”

Julian kisses him soundly and murmurs into his mouth, “We’re better together.”

“A frightening proposition.” Garak runs his hand under the back of Julian’s shirt, the cold, roaming fingers sending a shiver through him.

Pressing their hips together, Julian whispers, “Are you worried?”

“Yes.” Garak slides his free hand between their bodies. “But I won’t let that distract me.”


End file.
